Thaumatechnology
= Thaumatechnology = Anger Patch (•) The Anger Patch is a small patch of a dead man’s skin grafted to the base of the neck. One inch square, precisely measured, the patch is wired with twice the number of nerve endings that area of the body usually has. It’s hooked directly into the bloodstream, too, and it feeds from your blood all day and all night and it does one thing in return: it hates. The Anger Patch isn’t just a square of a dead man’s skin, it’s a square of a vampire’s skin. Vampires, as Cheiron scientists have observed, exhibit an instinctual territorial aggression on a scale unprecedented in nature, and with a little biomedical tinkering, the boys in the back room have figured out how to harness that. Benefit: The Anger Patch acts as a kind of automatic vampire detector. Whenever a character with an Anger Patch becomes aware of a vampire, the patch writhes and twitches irritably, as though the muscles under the skin are experiencing a muscle spasm. The character does not need to be aware the person he’s seen is a vampire — just catching a glimpse of a pale figure across the club is sufficient — but the Anger Patch, by virtue of being grafted into the central nervous system, makes the character instinctively aware of who the vampire is (or who the vampires are). The sensation lasts about a turn, just long enough to make it hard to miss. There are two catches to relying on the Anger Patch: first, the Patch only works for a given user once for each vampire. Subsequent meetings don’t trigger the visceral reaction from the patch; Cheiron scientists haven’t been able to get the sensitivity of the neural connections to the point where the secondary reactions are detectable to a human host. Second, the character suffers a -1 penalty on all Social rolls against vampires. Bloodsuckers just can’t stand him, even if they can’t quite figure out why. Although the vampiric version presented here is the most common Anger Patch, Cheiron Group agents often hear rumors of similar devices capable of detecting werewolves, zombies, or even stranger beings. If such Thaumatechnology does exist, it functions identically to the vampire-detecting version, just focused on a different type of creature. And if such Thaumatechnology exists, assume that detecting a monster type different from vampires costs an additional two dots for the Merit. How such devices are made — and what they’re made of — probably doesn’t bear thinking about. Voice of the Banshee (• or •••) Mythology is full of wailing creatures whose voices either lure or unnerve any who hear it (think of the Sirens or Bean Sidhes). Often these creatures are beautiful from afar, but dreadful to approach and they often portend death. These terrible creatures may well be rare off-shoots of the vampire genealogic tree as they’ve been witnessed preying on desire, breath, or age. When a field agent came across one of these mysterious wailing women of legend—washing what looked to be a Cheiron Group issue field jacket in the Thames—she was quick to tranq it for the fat bonus she knew she could earn. Shame she was struck by a bus only two days after telling the story to the man who came by to pick up the carcass and deliver the check. The Cheiron Group successfully extracted the vocal chords from a rare few of these specimens and found use for them in the field. Benefit: The stringy tendons of the vocal chords allow the recipient to make a high-pitched keen just outside the range of human hearing. She emits a sub-aural wave of sound that will agitate animals and deafen anyone using supernaturally enhanced senses. Cost 1 Willpower Action: Instant Dice Pool: Stamina + Expression Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The hunter strains herself trying to swallow her tongue and force the sound from her throat. She suffers two points of bashing damage and spends the turn hoarsely retching. Her voice is reduced to a whisper for approximately 24 hours. Failure: The hunter can’t muster the will necessary to emit such sound. Success: The hunter successfully emits a shrill keening wail. Animals, vampires and other creatures with heightened senses cannot concentrate for the racket, suffering a penalty to all actions for as many turns as the hunter has breath (the hunter can continue uninterrupted for as many turns as she has dots in Stamina or end the effect prematurely if she so chooses). In addition, those affected suffer bashing damage equal to the number of successes gained to active the Endowment. Normal humans are generally untouched by the effects of this implant. If the hunter possesses the three-dot version, those affected as above also suffer the effects of the Depression or Melancholia derangements for the remainder of the scene. Exceptional Success: The wail is so damaging that all objects within ten yards of the hunter suffer one point of Structure damage. Weapon of Last Resort (• or ••) One of the basic survival tips any hunter will give you is “never go unarmed.” Thanks to an advanced study of vampiric dentition and the natural weaponry of a variety of monsters, the Cheiron Group has been able to extend this maxim to any of its agents. Whether it’s an implant of weird, razor-sharp fingertips of some unearthly metal or jagged fangs ripped from the maw of a gibbering servitor demon, a Weapon of Last Resort can save an agent’s life or deflect investigation of a mysterious death (“She was just ripped apart, like a bear got her or something.”) As an added benefit, the natural weapons of this Endowment are easily concealable and can be taken into restricted areas. Benefit: The hunter gains either a claw attack that allows her to make Brawl attacks that inflict lethal damage, or a bite attack that inflicts 1(L). If the character opts for the bite attack, he must successfully grapple first. For two dots, he gains both attacks. Special: Characters trying to detect a Weapon of Last Resort that is not actively being used may make a Wits + Composure roll at a -4 penalty. If the inspecting character has reason to suspect the hunter might have biological modifications of this sort (for example, he’s seen this Endowment before or has crossed paths with vampires or the like), the penalty drops to -2. Devil’s Eyes (••) It’s amazing the things they can do with the human eye. Corneal transplants can repair traumatic damage to the surface of the eye, neurosurgeons can connect cameras directly into the optic nerve, and laser surgery can give you perfect 20/20 vision — and the Cheiron Group can give you the eyes of a demon that see the deepest secrets of a man’s soul. Transplantation of the entire eyeball is a new field for Cheiron doctors, and Devil’s Eyes are one of the early prototypes. Before the implantation, Devil’s Eyes resemble golden, multifaceted orbs, like oversized insect eyes. Once they’ve been implanted and hooked up to a person’s optic nerves, they shift their pigmentation and structure, becoming indistinguishable from the patient’s natural eyes. No matter how bad the character’s eyes were originally, Devil’s Eyes give him perfect 20/20 vision. Devil’s Eyes aren’t really “eyes” in any biological sense; while they are the sensory organs of the creature they come from, they don’t really perceive the world the way a human’s eyes do. To allow a person to see through the Devil’s Eyes, a tiny computerized interface chip must be implanted between the optic nerve and the Eye themselves. The interface processes the visual information out of the image perceived by the Eyes, filtering out extraneous data beyond the human visual range. The result of this post-processing gives the hunter’s vision a ? at, artificial look, as though the whole world were a badly retouched photograph. Benefit: By squeezing her eyes shut and rolling them in a particular way behind the lids, a character with Devil’s Eyes can temporarily disengage the interface chip and receive the full, unfiltered spectrum the Eyes perceive. When active, the Eyes allow the character to perceive the emotional auras surrounding other individuals. These auras provide insight into the character’s emotional state, and can even reveal supernatural influences. The Devil’s Eyes revert to their natural appearance while active. Action: Instant. Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The massive rush of information overwhelms the hunter. For the rest of the scene, she cannot turn the Eyes off and is treated as though she had ingested a potent (-3 to traits) dose of hallucinogens. Failure: The hunter is unable to make sense of the swirling aura of colors around another character. Success: For every success rolled, the hunter can clearly discern one aura color of one individual in her line of sight. She may allocate her successes however she likes; she might spend all of them on getting a detailed perception of a single individual’s state of mind, or she might try a quick read on several characters. She discerns emotions in order of descending intensity. Aura signifiers that encompass the entire aura (that is, signifiers that are not just individual colors) are perceived automatically with at least one success. Exceptional Success: As ordinary success, but the total number of successes rolled is applied to all characters in line of sight. Example: Angeline, infiltrating a cult ceremony in the Philadelphia sewers, activates her Devil’s Eyes to get a sense of the congregation’s state of mind. She rolls four successes and allocates two of them to the priest performing the ritual, with the remaining two allocated to the two cultists closest to her. The Storyteller informs her that the high priest’s aura is a muted, hypnotic swirl of bright green and violet, while the two nearest cultists have gold auras. The two successes for the high priest show her his obsession and excitement, while the one each for the two cultists reveals their confusion. In addition, she automatically recognizes the high priest’s psychotic nature — and, interestingly, the fact that he’s under supernatural control. Ectocrine Gland (••) When a materialized spirit is forced back into the spirit world or killed, it sometimes leaves behind a gooey, semi-material fluid that is referred to as ectoplasm (the same substance sometimes left behind by ghosts). Even though ectoplasm dissipates quickly in the material realm and is near impossible to gather samples of, the Cheiron Group has managed to conduct some experiments with the stuff. The experiment that eventually led to the creation of the Ectocrine Gland featured a quick-thinking field agent and a syringe. After defeating a materialized spirit that had somehow escaped containment and was wreaking havoc in a graveyard, the agent scooped up some of the ectoplasm left by the spirit. Noticing that the ectoplasm was dissipating and not wanting to miss an opportunity to experiment with the substance, the agent poked some of it into a syringe and injected himself. Subsequent to his release from the mental ward, the agent reported that after the injection he had been able to see non-corporeal ghosts and spirits (those existing in the state of Twilight). Not long after the results of that experiment had been filed, a different team of scientists sent a report to the Cheiron head office that claimed they had detected trace amounts of ectoplasm in the blood stream of a girl who had been the victim of possession. Seeking a way to verify these new claims, Cheiron ran a battery of tests on a kidnapped spiritualist. They discovered that the spiritualist also had trace amounts of ectoplasm in his blood and, more exciting than that, his body seemed to manufacture the stuff. Following further months of experimentation along with trial and error, Cheiron discovered a way to manufacture a gland that would release ectoplasm into the bodies of their agents. The result? The Ectocrine Gland. Benefit: By concentrating, the hunter can activate the Ectocrine Gland. This allows him to see into Twilight and communicate (though not physically interact) with non-manifested entities. This effect lasts for one scene and the gland can produce enough ectoplasm to be used a number of times each day equal to the Stamina of the hunter. The things that dwell in Twilight aren’t forced to communicate with the hunter and the gland doesn’t bestow the ability to understand any languages beyond those already spoken by the hunter. Drawback: While the hunter gazes into Twilight it can be difficult to concentrate on events going on around him. The concentration required to separate what is “real” from what is Twilight results in a -2 penalty to all Perception rolls. Additionally, the presence of ectoplasm in his bloodstream also makes the hunter an easier target for possession. For an hour after the Ectocrine Gland is activated, the hunter is penalized -2 dice to resist possession. Lover’s Lips (••) This implant isn’t literally a pair of lips and, in fact, the Cheiron Group’s official designation for it is “Eros’ Caress.” The truth is less poetic: “Lover’s Lips” are actually manufactured sacs, resembling nothing so much as a snake’s venom sacs. They’re made from the latest in synthetic skin technology, with just a little something extra harvested from what passes for a vampire’s circulatory system. The whole thing is filled with a few cc’s of blood — not necessarily the implantee’s — then implanted under the jaw, right alongside the salivary gland. When the hunter massages just behind his jaw and below his ears, the blood, partially transformed by the vampiric tissue, squirts into his mouth. It tastes vile, but when someone else gets a taste of it, usually through a kiss, they suddenly become very fond of the hunter. Benefit: When another character tastes the blood secreted by this implant, it induces a mild euphoric effect, as though she has taken a hit of morphine. This euphoric state lasts only for a scene, not the (8 minus Stamina) hours of a real morphine hit. She becomes well disposed toward the implanted character, who gains the benefit of the 9-again rule on Social rolls against her for the next scene. If a single individual tastes blood from the same character’s implant more than once in a single month, she becomes mildly addicted to the taste of the blood. In addition, her affection for him deepens; he gains a +1 bonus on all Social rolls against the victim as long as she has tasted his blood within the past month. This bonus is in addition to the 9-again benefit that lasts for a scene after each taste. An Eros’ Caress implant can only hold enough blood for a single “dose” at a time. In order to use the implant again, the hunter must refill it by injecting a small amount of blood directly into the implant. The blood can be human (either the hunter’s or someone else’s) or animal, but a successful injection requires a Dexterity + Medicine roll to hit the implant. Berserker Splice (•••) No one that has had a close encounter with a werewolf can help but remember the primal fury exhibited by the creatures. Wounds that would be fatal to a human simply serve to enrage a werewolf and that anger gives them strength. The scientists of the Cheiron Group have studied both the human looking remains of werewolves and have performed dissections on still-living specimens (a trickier proposition) searching for, among other things, a physiological reason for a werewolf’s rage. When their data was compiled, the scientists noticed that every one of the werewolves studied had an enlarged medulla oblongata. Believing they had found the answer to the riddle, the scientists performed a transplant on a willing (hey, no one made him sign the waiver) Cheiron field agent, replacing his human medulla oblongata with one taken from a werewolf. The results were spectacular, if messy. Upon awakening after the surgery, the agent attacked anyone he could get his hands on, killing 11 Cheiron employees with his bare fists and teeth before he was subdued. Tapes of the incident suggested that the subject exhibited increased strength and fortitude. Later examinations of the body revealed the subject had been shot nine times before he collapsed. Despite the mishap, the scientists in charge of the program were eager to continue with their project and with comparatively minor losses to the company (only around 50 employees were killed all told) eventually perfected a stable transplant procedure. Instead of a direct transplant, the scientists carved off small sections of a werewolf’s medulla oblongata and spliced them directly into the sensory and motor areas of a subject’s cerebral cortex. When stimulated by adrenaline produced during the fight-or-flight instinct, the splices became active and pumped additional chemicals into the body that increased natural strength and physical resiliency. The program was declared a success by the head office and instructions on the procedure were disseminated throughout the company and its subsidiaries. Benefit: Whenever the hunter is in a dangerous situation, the adrenaline produced by the stress activates the Berserker Splice. For the remainder of the scene, a hunter with the implant gains two Strength plus an additional +1 Strength for every point of lethal damage taken (this ignores normal human Attribute limits) and gains the Iron Stamina ••• Merit whether he meets the prerequisites or not. (The advantages during a fight are obvious, but in flight situations remember that the Speed of the character is also increased by the boost in Strength.) Drawback: Other than suffering from a ravenous hunger after the implant is activated, agents with a Berserker Splice also have a tendency to, well, go berserk. While the Splice is active, each time the agent takes two or more points of lethal damage from a single attack he must succeed at a Resolve + Composure roll or fly into a killing rage or cowardly retreat (player’s choice). The hunter is unable to tell friend from foe while in the rage and will attack the closest target if the player chooses a “fight” response. The berserker rage lasts for a number of turns equal the Stamina rating of the hunter, after which the splice shuts down and the hunter collapses from exhaustion (count the hunter as stunned for a number of turns equal to those spent in the rage). Cells that have prior warning about this possible “side effect” can plan accordingly for this eventuality by attempting to stay out of the line of sight of a hunter with the implant during combat. Cortical Adaptation (•••) Some slashers are driven to kill because of a condition that affects their brain. In at least three recorded cases, tertiary syphilis destroyed the moral center of the subject’s brain and caused powerful delusions that drove the individual to kill. In other cases, large tumors destroy the subject’s impulse control and punch great holes in her ability to make moral judgments. Cheiron’s R&D harvests alien parts of these tumors and implants the resultant lesions on the surface of a hunter’s brain. Every hunter reacts differently to having part of a cancerous (and murderous) growth attached to their brain during extensive and invasive surgery. In effect, the hunter can “switch on” a part of her personality that makes her think in the same way as a slasher, giving her an unparalleled insight into the thoughts of a serial killer. Her thoughts resonate with others of her new kind; she can use her understanding to read the scene of a murder in ways that no profiler or investigator can manage. She’s got an intuitive understanding of murder, and it shows. The real magic behind this Endowment is an inhibitor chip that sits between the lesion and the hunter’s brain. The chip does more than let the hunter switch a new mode of thought on and off: even when emulating a slasher’s mind, the hunter remains in control. It’s more than a little unsettling for the hunter, seeing herself thinking in alien ways that suddenly seem so tempting. The chip helps her retain control. Reports that the inhibitor chip dissolves after three years of swimming in cerebral fluid are so far unconfirmed — few hunters have lasted that long with the implant in place. Benefit: By spending a point of Willpower, the hunter can think in the same way as a slasher. She gains a three-dice bonus on Investigation or Empathy rolls regarding serial killers and other murderers. When “in the zone,” she understands things as a serial killer does, and her impulse control and moral centers are affected. The implant remains active until the end of the scene. A hunter with this implant must choose a ripper Undertaking for his slasher-self (see Building the Perfect Killer, pg. 87). She chooses two of that Undertaking’s Skills. She gains one new Specialty in one of these Undertaking Skills, and may increase these Skills at a rate of (new dots x2) rather than (new dots x 3). Special: Using this implant generates a strong sense of disassociation — the hunter watches her own thought processes, things that she knows she is thinking, and doesn’t recognize them at all. The hunter suffers a -1 penalty to all rolls made to resist Morality degeneration. If the Cortical Adaption is removed, this effect does not remain. It’s also worth mentioning that hunters with this implant suffer a high rate of malignant cancers throughout the body… though, Cheiron doesn’t share this data with its employees, of course. Evil Eye (•••) The eyes are the windows to the soul, so says the proverb. Field agents who have seen what vampires can do to a man just by looking him in the eye believe those words wholeheartedly. The mavericks of the Cheiron Group thought to prove the expression beyond reasonable doubt, however. Any fool with a scalpel can pluck the eye from someone’s head, but to lock the soul inside the eye beforehand? Well, that’s why they get paid the big bucks. For whatever reason, the method used to extract the eye while maintaining the inherent abilities of the creature causes the awful discoloration and unsightliness. They say it’s because the twisted soul of the creature becomes trapped inside. The surgeons of the Cheiron Group are still investigating ways to make a more… fashionable version, but so far, efforts have failed. These sightless milky eyes are able to replicate a vampire’s ability to sway the minds of others to a limited degree. Unfortunately, true to name it has proven difficult to look at conversationally, and is most often politely covered by an eye patch. When needed, the field agent simply flips up the eye patch to reveal to her opponents her awful ocular addition. Benefit: The hunter has replaced one of her eyes with a bloated and milky abomination; appropriately, she suffers from the One Eye Flaw and -2 to any Social rolls where the eye is exposed. She may choose one of the following Dread Powers at one dot: Confuse, Fury, Hypnotize, Sleep or Terrify (all found pp. 276-283 in Hunter: The Vigil). Special: The character may purchase additional dots of the Dread Power chosen, to a maximum of three dots. The cost is new dots x 8 in experience points. Additional powers cannot be chosen (unless the character chooses to lose the second eye, which would render her totally blind). Optic Thorn (•••) This implant—which pierces the optic nerve of the left eye, and only the left eye (sinister is from sinestra, or Latin for “left”)—isn’t a thorn at all. It’s a tiny bone spur sculpted to look very much like a thorn. Those who have this implant generally don’t know where it comes from. If they ask or get an MRI/X-Ray, they’ll see or be told that this “thorn” was pulled from the photosynthetic flesh of a ?oral- or fungal-based “reality deviant” (in other words: a fae creature). Patently not true. The truth is, it’s a bone chip from another hunter. Specifically, a hunter of the Lucifuge. For the most part, the higher-ups in the Field Projects Division don’t differentiate Lucifuge hunters from demons or the demon-possessed; yes, they seem committed to carrying the Vigil, but they’re clearly supernatural, and that supernature is carried through the physical blood. If their blood is monstrous, then so is the rest of their bodies. That makes them harvest targets. The bone chip is taken from around the eye socket of the Lucifuge—chipped away with a chisel, perhaps, with enough material taken so that one or several thorns can be “whittled” down from the sample. It doesn’t require the hunter be killed, of course. Bone damage, however, is not pleasant, nor does it heal easily. Benefit: The FPD agent is now capable of seeing other supernaturally-augmented hunters for what they are. This requires no roll and is considered “always on.” This allows the Cheiron hunter to automatically see hunters of the Lucifuge. In addition, they can see hunters currently using an active Relic or those who have imbibed or ingested an Elixir (Ascending Ones). This does not help the hunter to differentiate between them—it only identifies them as a supernaturally-augmented hunter. It also fails to help the agent identify members of VALKYRIE, or any hunter of the AKD or Ascending Ones not currently using a Relic or Elixir. Personal Defense Swarm (•••) The Cheiron Group’s scientists still aren’t entirely sure how to explain the function of this implant, and the very nature of where it comes from remains top secret. Rumor has it that a team in Bucharest (or maybe Prague, or Vienna, or somewhere else) found some weird little monster that turned into an ugly little metal statue as soon as they caught it. They say the boys in the back room figured out what made it fall inert, and how to revive it. Then they melted it down into little ball bearings, coated the pieces with hypoallergenic aluminum, and jabbed them into hunters’ arms. The tiny metal spheres are embedded in the subcutaneous tissue of the forearm. A small valve, similar to the one some dialysis patients use, is implanted near the base of the palm. After the hunter comes out of recovery, he’s given a small, black satchel that contains five syringes of an extremely diluted solution of a substance rumored to be wrung from the organs of unnaturally animated corpses. Whatever that substance is, those little ball bearings feed on it. For lack of a better word, they hatch. When the hunter opens that valve in his wrist, a swarm of tiny, angry insects come boiling out and attack whatever the hunter’s mad at. The bugs look like little yellow jackets — except for the fact that each one has the exact same human face. Benefit: Activating requires only a drop from the prodigious syringe, and it takes a while for the hunter to run dry. Assume each syringe is good for five activations (for a total of 25 activations per satchel). Cheiron will resupply syringes, but it can take up to two weeks (less for those with Status 3 or more in the conspiracy). The swarm of insect-creatures spawned by this implant has a rudimentary connection to their host’s neurological systems. While they cannot be communicated with or controlled directly, they recognize their host’s feelings of anger and hostility, and will attack targets that trigger those emotions. (It’s best to be careful with this. One story making the Cheiron rounds tells of a hunter who found out his partner was having an affair with his wife. Their cell faced off against some shambling thing made of tatters and rags and grief given form, and our cuckolded lover let loose his PDS — which promptly killed the hell out of his cheating partner while the monster mopped up the rest of the cell.) The swarm only retains this connection while it is inert and implanted in the host; thus, it’s wisest to wait until a fight begins to activate this Endowment. The swarm attacks creatures in order of the intensity of the aggression they provoke in the host, and focuses its attack on one enemy at a time until its target is dead or driven off. The swarm never strays more than 10 yards from its host. The swarm has a radius of four yards (see the sidebar on this page) and inflicts bashing damage. It moves at a Speed of 10. The swarm remains active for 10 turns, then immediately returns to its host and squeezes back into the valve before falling inert again. If the swarm is unable to return to its host, it returns to its inert state and falls to the ground. Provided at least three quarters of the ball bearings can be recovered, they can be reimplanted with no roll (simply plug the bearings back into the shunt). Should the swarm take damage sufficient to reduce it to less than one yard in radius, the remaining insects flee back to their host. Cheiron Group doctors insist that once the swarm goes inert, it falls completely lifeless, but that doesn’t explain the fact that the things can repopulate themselves. It takes one full day of remaining inert (i.e., the hunter does not activate this Merit) to increase a depleted swarm’s size by one yard radius. The swarm can be activated at less than full size, if desired. Quick-Step (•••) The Cheiron Group expects nothing less than success from its field agents. The Group’s continued research success relies on monsters being brought in alive (well, intact, at any rate) for study and harvest. But science is a pragmatic study, and the Cheiron board of directors knows that sometimes C you just have to get the hell away and live to fight again. To that end, they developed the Quick-Step. Half-manufactured, half-grown from the ligaments of swiftly running monsters (werewolves, some vampires, certain demonic entities), Quick-Steps give even an ordinary man the ability to shatter Olympic records. It might even be enough to let him get away from the things in the shadows. Benefit: A character with a Quick-Step implant gets a +3 bonus to his Speed. This bonus stacks with the bonus from Fleet of Foot, if applicable. In addition, the hunter gains the benefit of the 9-again rule on any Athletics rolls related to moving quickly, such as foot chases. Finally, if the character runs (moving double his Speed in a single turn), he may retain his Defense against firearms attacks. Special: Using the Quick-Step quickly fatigues the character. Every turn in which he uses the 9-again benefit on Athletics rolls or moves more than his Speed counts as three hours without rest. Apply this fatigue at the end of the current scene, and only roll Stamina + Resolve to stay awake once. For example, if a hunter has been awake for 12 hours, then engages in a six-turn foot chase during which he gains the 9-again rule on Stamina + Athletics rolls, he is treated as though he has been awake for 30 hours. He must roll Stamina + Resolve at a -1 penalty or immediately fall asleep, and he suffers a -1 penalty to all dice pools until he sleeps for nine hours. The character may choose not to gain the 9-again rule on his actions if he wishes to avoid the fatigue. Agonizer (••••) Witches power their magic with energies from worlds beyond our own, and warlocks marshal powers that no sane man can fully comprehend. They’re not the only ones in tune with otherworldly power. Sometimes, magic isn’t the only thing to cross between worlds. Impressive magical acts occasionally bring unearthly creatures into being. While the range of creatures that crawl between the cracks of the world is vast, Cheiron agents recovered a number of unearthly creatures that feast on magical power. They’ve found enough that R&D believe they have to come from somewhere, but nobody’s quite sure where. Some appear very similar, suggesting that they’re not created ex nihlio but are instead fauna of some alien Realm. One such beast turns humans into thaumovores — magic-eaters. On its own the creature is no bigger than a cockroach, but it soon chooses a human host and burrows in through the base of the throat. Working through the host’s body, it soon attaches itself to its target’s brain. Once it’s there, the bug spins new nerve fibers out through the host’s body. These fibers act as an antenna, picking up on ambient magical fields and sucking them dry. The host starts acting odd, researching weird places and occult sites at the bug’s insistence. Even then, parasites that Cheiron don’t recover die out. There isn’t much magical energy just lying around. The Cheiron Group aren’t monsters. They don’t expect their field operatives to give up any part of their brain in the name of killing witches. That would be wrong. The biotech guys came up with a better idea. They trim the nerve-antennas and attach them to four half-inch metal spikes, then implant the bug on the outside of the hunter’s right arm. Each spike lies flat just under the hunter’s right palm. Flexing her wrist just so makes the spikes spring out. When they do, the area of palm between them turns the color of old blood. A hunter has to keep her Agonizer happy. She can walk through an area suffused with magical energy, and the residual nerve-antenna might pick up enough magic to sate the bug. More often, she has to stick the spikes into a witch’s skin. The Agonizer then eats the magic out of her victim’s soul, crippling the victim with pain as it does so. If she doesn’t keep her Agonizer happy, the hunter knows just how her victims feel. Benefit: The Agonizer eats magic. There’s no other way to put it. It can either draw magic out of areas steeped in magic, which usually keeps it happy for a week, or it must feed on the Source stored within a witch. Attacking with the Agonizer requires the hunter to touch her target: Dexterity + Brawl - target’s Defense. The bug doesn’t deal damage normally. Instead, every success on the attack roll drains one point of Source. If the target doesn’t have enough Source, extra successes are lost. For every point of Source consumed, the target suffers a -1 penalty due to crippling pain (to a maximum of -5). This penalty lasts until the end of the scene. If used on a target that does not have any reserves of Source, the Agonizer has no effect. Special: The Agonizer must consume one point of Source per week, either from a witch or from a magical area. The hunter suffers a cumulative -1 penalty on all rolls per day once the week is over (to a maximum of -5). Feeding the Agonizer instantly removes this penalty. Example: Oscar’s had a bad week. His Agonizer ran dry on Monday, and by Wednesday night he’s in intense pain. Fortunately, his cell has got a lead on a witch. The others distract her while Jack plunges his barbed palm into her back. He gets lucky, rolling two successes even with his -3 modifier. The witch loses her two points of Source, and suffers a -2 modifier on all rolls until the end of the scene. Oscar stops suffering the -3 modifier immediately. Plasmic Caul (••••) Some ghosts are… different. Cheiron has yet to identify exactly why they’re different, but what they do know is that they tend to be: a) more powerful; b) without a human identity (while possessing an identity that is more archetypal than anything); and c) able to forge some kind of symbiotic bond with a human. Cheiron also recognizes that these things can be “killed,” in a manner of speaking, and destroying them seems to leave behind a physical artifact—some displacement of matter, perhaps, or some object manifestation of ectoplasmic residue. The artifact might be a sliver of wood, an ivory horn, a bezoar stone, even a set of gold teeth. Many even have faces (or parts of faces) imprinted into them, as if pushing through from “the other side.” The fine doctors of the Field Projects Division have learned how to break these objects apart and implant a “seed” of the original object into the thalamus of one of their Thaumatech endowed hunters. In theory, it should be a huge benefit for Cheiron employees. In theory… Benefit: This is all a little new to the doctors. The problem is, they don’t really know what the final end result of the implantation process will be. Two things are certain: one, it offers the hunter the ability to see ghosts that are concealed in the state of Twilight, and two, it grants them +1 dice on any roll made regarding a ghost (communication, exorcism, attack, etc.). Beyond that, the results are… unpredictable. The hunter gains a secondary effect by spending a point of Willpower (and the effect lasts for the remainder of one scene). An ectoplasmic caul forms over the hunter’s face, and the caul reacts to the world in specific ways, manifesting specific effects. Players should choose one effect below from the following list (though, if the Endowment is installed during the story, the player is encouraged to allow the Storyteller to determine the ability, instead): -Blood: Those within ten feet of the hunter suffer stigmata bleeding (hands, side, forehead). This causes either one point of Willpower loss to all of them, or two points of bashing damage (the player chooses). -Dirt: The caul leaks runny mud and clods of clay that smell of the grave. In one turn, it covers the hunter’s body for the most part—and offers two dots of armor against incoming bashing and lethal attacks. -Emotion: Whatever the hunter is feeling at that moment, so is everybody else near to him (within 50 feet). They possess the exact same emotion. They gain +3 Empathy on all rolls made on one another. -Fire: The hunter is protected from all fire damage for the remainder of the scene. -Howl: The caul is capable of emitting a screeching primal howl—the hunter must roll Strength + Presence. Successes gained on the roll equal a penalty to Perception for all who hear the howl (excepting the hunter herself). In addition, it does one point of bashing damage to them, as well. -Hush: A zone of silence surrounds the hunter in a space equal to a radius of five feet around her. Any Stealth rolls based on sound within this space gain +5 dice, as do any attempts to surprise within this zone. -Sight: The hunter is capable of seeing things in ways nobody else likely will; any success on a sight-based Perception roll is considered an exceptional success. -Static: The hunter emits a static discharge from the caul. Any electronic objects within five feet of his face cease to work for 24 hours. -Water: The hunter can hold his breath underwater for one full scene. -Wind: A sharp, cold, inconsistent wind whips around the hunter, carrying with it all manner of debris. It adds two to the hunter’s Defense for the scene. Regenerative Nodule (••••) As good as the Cheiron Group’s doctors are, they aren’t even close to the recuperative abilities of some of the monsters they track down. Werewolves in particular are obscenely fast healers — so fast, in fact, that sometimes their bodies overcompensate and form little cysts that Cheiron Group medics have termed “regenerative nodules.” As far as the wolves know, they’re harmless, but Cheiron got hold of a few through some very questionable means, and now the boys in the back room have figured out how to harness the things’ potential and turn it loose on the human body. A Regenerative Nodule looks like a rubbery lump of scar tissue the size of a golf ball. Before they put it in you, Cheiron scientists put a little plastic shunt into the core of the nodule — a tricky proposition since the incision heals over almost instantly. When it’s sewn into the lining of your gut, it’s almost invisible, even though you can still feel the lump. Give that lump a press, and the shunt puckers open and dumps into your system pure…well, whatever the hell makes werewolves heal so fast. Benefit: In addition to pressing on the lump of the implant, the character must spend a Willpower point to activate the Nodule. Once activated, the nodule heals the character’s injuries at a terrifying rate: one point of bashing damage heals every turn, while one lethal wound disappears every 15 minutes. This healing is reflexive, and the accelerated healing rate lasts until all bashing and lethal wounds have been healed. Once the character’s Health boxes are entirely free of bashing or lethal wounds, the Regenerative Nodule is completely spent. It falls inert and cannot be activated again for one week. The Regenerative Nodule has no affect on aggravated damage. Special: Werewolves draw the energy to heal themselves from some as-yet-unknown metaphysical source. Ordinary people, lacking such a source, must fuel the regeneration with their own bodies. Every point of bashing damage the Nodule heals counts as one day without food. Every lethal wound healed counts as one day without food or water. If the character suffers damage from this deprivation, the Regenerative Nodule does not (and cannot) heal it, and still shuts down after all wounds not inflicted by deprivation are healed. Many hunters, while healing, eat voraciously to try to stave off damage from deprivation. Doing so necessitates the hunter gorge on food and liquid constantly (doing nothing else during the healing time) and without interruption. Twitcher (••••) It looks harmless enough — like a little stick bug made out of wires and protein sacs filled with a pink goo. It wriggles a little bit when disturbed, even before it’s implanted. When they stick it in the base of your spine, it curls around your spinal column and nests there, pumping pure nervous energy into you. When your life is in danger, it twitches, massaging your spinal cord and ramping your reflexes up to a terrifying degree. That’s almost worth the nightmares, and the crushing sense of paranoia that comes along with them. Benefit: A character with a Twitcher implant uses the higher of his Wits or Dexterity to determine his Defense, instead of the lower of the two. When surprised, or attacked by an unseen foe, the hunter uses the lower of his Dexterity or Wits as Defense, even though a normal person would be denied Defense completely. The Twitcher has no effect on Firearms attacks except at point blank range. Special: Each night when a character with a Twitcher implant goes to sleep, he must roll Resolve + Composure versus the implant’s dot rating (4 dice). If the character earns more successes, he sleeps peacefully and regains a point of Willpower as normal. If the implant gets more successes, his sleep is wracked with nightmares of being endlessly hunted, always a hair’s breadth away from death. These nightmares prevent the hunter from regaining a point of Willpower from restful sleep. In addition, any time the character is surprised in combat, he must succeed on a Morality roll or develop a temporary Suspicion derangement that lasts for the rest of the scene. If the character already has this derangement, it temporarily becomes a Phobia instead. Vitriol Pump (••••) A Vitriol Pump is similar to the external insulin pump that some diabetics use. It is a small, plastic device, about the size of a deck of cards, worn on an underarm harness with a tube leading into the hunter’s side. When necessary, the hunter pushes a button on a remote control (usually worn on the belt or wrist) and releases a cocktail of low-grade sedatives, saline solution, and a tiny amount of vitriol into her bloodstream. The vitriolic mixture grants the hunter access to past successes. Also, it allows her to activate muscle memory, which is related to a moment when she acted correctly, to take over a current endeavor. From the hunter’s perspective, she experiences the sensory memory of that past success, along with a flood of memories that aren’t hers. These memories belong to the Promethean whose vitriol runs through the hunter’s veins. Benefit: When activated, the Vitriol Pump allows the player to add three successes to a roll, drawing on memories of when the character did something similar, and did it flawlessly. Because of this, the Vitriol Pump can only help with Skill rolls that have a physical component and a rating of three dots or more. (Usually these rolls related to Physical Skills, but there are some exceptions to this.) If the target roll fails, the Vitriol Pump’s successes have no effect; the Pump cannot turn a failure into a success. A Vitriol Pump holds enough liquid for three doses before it needs to be refilled; this takes at least a week to allow for shipping and remixing the cocktail. Banality Worm (•••••) There are dimensions beyond this world that we perceive with our limited five senses. The Cheiron Group knows this, even if it doesn’t entirely understand the how and why of such places. Sometimes, though, things leak through from those other worlds, and Cheiron agents find them. The resulting experiments are very...enlightening. The Banality Worm is one such creature, crawled through a rift in the wall between this world and another. As near as anyone can tell, the realm this pale, greasy little creature came from is the very antithesis of this one, a realm of pure, absolute nothing. And in this world, it hates the supernatural even more than the most fanatic of hunters. Hatred of magic seems to be embedded into its very being; sorceries of all sorts tend to dissolve when directed at the Worm. It didn’t take long to realize that if you stitch the Banality Worm into someone’s chest cavity, magic directed at the host would unravel, too. A Banality Worm is implanted in an extremely risky procedure directly under the host’s heart. Once implanted, the creature nestles up to the warm, pulsating organ and suckles on it, feeding off the host’s blood supply. Every so often, it curls around the heart and squeezes. Benefit: The host of a Banality Worm gains an extraordinary resistance to supernatural effects. Any time a supernatural effect targets him (including the Relic, Benediction and Castigation Endowments), the effect’s originator subtracts the host’s Resolve from her dice pool. If the power is already resisted by Resolve, she subtracts double the host’s Resolve. Special: Something about having a cold, alien parasite from a realm of pure nihilism cozied up to his heart skews the host’s moral perceptions a bit. Whenever he makes a degeneration roll, the host rolls one less die. Hand of Glory (•••••) Limb transplant technology has come a long way in the last 40 years. It used to be the best you could hope for was a plastic model, like a mannequin’s hand. Nowadays, provided you’re willing to go on a cocktail of immunosuppressants for the rest of your life, they can actually hack the hand off a cadaver and attach it to you almost as good as new. The Cheiron Group has been at the forefront of limb-replacement research for two decades, and with the aid of Thaumatechnology had recorded successes five years before mainstream medical technology. Then the boys in the back room got hold of a peculiar little relic a field team brought back from a raid on a demon worshiping cult in southern France: a pickled human hand, severed at the wrist, with each finger a tiny candle. When the candle was lit, anyone who saw its light was transfixed, unable to move or speak. In one of those serendipitous moments that make the world go round, the scientists of the Cheiron Group saw a way to kill two birds with one proverbial stone. A Hand of Glory must be affixed to the stump of a human being’s arm. Occult tradition dictates that it must be a left hand specifically, but Cheiron Group surgeons have had equal success in transplanting either hand. What is important is that the hand come from a hanged man or woman and be at least partially pickled in a solution of bizarre alchemical reagents. By all rights, it should be impossible to graft such thoroughly necrotized flesh onto a living being without massive infection and death, but something in the nature of the Thaumatechnology allows the grafted limb to function normally. It’s always a few degrees cooler than the rest of the body, and the skin is perpetually wrinkled as though it has soaked in a bath, but it is otherwise indistinguishable from a normal hand. Benefit: Apart from restoring the use of an amputated hand, the Hand of Glory bestows upon its owner the mesmeric power of the folkloric corpse-candle. The hunter must light the ends of the Hand’s fingers (he takes no damage from this, and the fire doesn’t consume his flesh) to activate it. The resultant flames are preternaturally steady and unwavering, and cannot be put out save by be being doused in milk. Anyone who sees the flames of the Hand of Glory risks being rendered immobile and insensate as long as the flames remain visible. While the candles burn, the character suffers a -2 penalty to any rolls related to manual dexterity using that hand. The flames are too small to inflict damage or be used as a weapon, but they can ignite flammable objects like paper or fabric. Dice Pool: Presence + Composure vs. Resolve. The Hand’s owner rolls once and compares his result to the result of all witnesses. Each time a new group of witnesses sees the Hand, the owner rolls once and compares his result to all of the witnesses’. Action: Contested. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The Hand of Glory’s power is turned on its owner. He is mesmerized (see “Success” for details) until someone forcibly breaks his line of sight to the Hand. Failure: Any character in line of sight who earns more successes on the contested action is unaffected by the Hand of Glory. Success: Any character (including the hunter’s allies) in line of sight who rolls fewer successes than the hunter is rendered immobile and can do nothing save stare, transfixed, at the Hand of Glory. The hunter may move, speak, or take actions freely without breaking the spell, as long as the flames are kept in the victim’s line of sight. Remember that the victim is completely immobile and cannot turn to follow the Hand of Glory. In order to be affected, the victim must see the flames themselves, not just the light from them. If the victim is attacked, or threatened with attack, the spell is immediately broken. A victim normally only rolls against an individual Hand of Glory once per scene. If the initial resistance roll succeeds, or if the spell is broken, that character is immune to the Hand’s effects for the remainder of the scene. The Hand’s owner may spend a point of Willpower to affect a given character more than once in the same scene (one Willpower is required per successive attempt per person). Mesmerized characters have no memory of events that transpire in their presence while mesmerized. They do recall the character with the Hand of Glory being the last thing they saw before blacking out. The Hand’s owner may spend Willpower to erase even this trace of his presence: for every affected character he wishes to forget having seen him, he may spend a point of Willpower when the effect is broken to wipe his presence from their minds. Provided he leaves their line of sight immediately, they will retain no recollection of him at all. This is an exception to the rule that a character may only spend one Willpower per turn. Photographs or video recordings do not convey the Hand’s effects to viewers, but live video feeds such as security cameras do. Exceptional Success: As a success, but all affected characters automatically forget the hunter without need for Willpower expenditure.